Gilmore tells colleagues to lip-it in lead up to budget

Eamon Gilmore has cautioned his party about spreading rumours about the budget as members openly talked of Labour dissent and frustration.

Mr Gilmore this week also faced a boycott by three senators who refused to attend the party’s pre-Dáil think-in because it was held in a luxurious hotel.

But the Tánaiste said that he welcomed free speech and that the mood of the two-day seminar had been “optimistic”.

Speaking after the meeting at Carton House, in Maynooth, Kildare, he said: “I hope we don’t see a season of kite-flying and rumours and leaks that are giving rise to unnecessary concerns.”

He said such rumours caused people to worry, particularly elderly people. “In last year’s experience we had a story a day about what might or might not be in the budget. It created a lot of unease on the people.”

His warning came as a number of party members expressed their own discontent with Labour.

Outspoken party chairman Colm Keaveney wrote a newspaper editorial yesterday in which he stressed that new Labour TDs were frustrated by being cut out of policy talks because of a “perceived need to sanitise any discussion within and between the two Government parties”.

The Galway East TD added: “Labour and Fine Gael are both in danger of becoming too focused on internal control, to the detriment of honest and lively discussion.”

Labour MEP Nessa Childers also suggested in Strasbourg this week that there could be a split in the party and that the programme for government needed to be renegotiated.

“I think there is a risk in the medium-term of a breakaway political party forming, of people who feel they’re more representing the Labour party.

“Many of us have in a sense already lost our seats,” she said, adding that the programme for government needed to be scrapped and drawn up again as promises had already been broken with voters.

Mr Gilmore also said he was disappointed that three Labour senators had decided not to attend the seminar in a show of protest over it being held in the Kildare hotel.

John Kelly, Denis Landy and James Heffernan boycotted the seminar because voters would think they were “living it up” on the 1,200-acre estate.

Mr Kelly said: “I’ve nothing against Carton House. I’m sure it’s a fine hotel but I don’t want to be seen to be living it up.”

The luxurious Kildare hotel charges up to €600 for rooms and also has a golf course, tennis courts and a pool.

Mr Gilmore defended the decision to use the venue for the seminar and said the party had got a good deal for using the conference rooms for the two days.